Personal Finance Update: How I'm Setting Effective Financial Goals for 2018

The gifts have been exchanged, the mistletoe has hung, and the xmas trees have started to stack up on the side of the street. We’re approaching the final hoorah of the holiday season.

After one last gigantic end-of-2017 party, it’ll be time for everybody to sober up and get back to work. All of those new years resolutions are about to come to roost. This author is in full grinch mode already and could not be happier.

It’s time to set goals for 2018.

Shorter Goals Are Better

I don’t want to set yearlong goals right now. A year is a long ass time. I don’t want to try and predict that far in advance.

Instead I am interested in three month goals. I just want to look at the time between now and the end of March, so I can get my head calmly wrapped around the situation. You don't need a crystal ball to plan out a few months of stuff.

Gigantic yearlong goals are stressful. They heckle us all year and most of the time they don't even get done. Blech. Three month goals seem much kinder while accomplishing the same thing.

Besides - maybe goals don't need to take a year.

The Future of Steem Prices Dictates a Lot

Right now so much of my future depends on the Steem price… it’s hard to even look a few months in the future. With Steem at $3+ and SBDs sitting above $8 for close to a month now, my income is much higher than it used to be.

Here’s my week coming up:

When I did my very first post talking about Personal Finance back in spring 2017, I had barely any income. I was making $200 a week. Even more recently, as recent as late November, I was months behind on credit card payments and my finance posts were pretty sad.

Now it’s literally been one month from my “I’m so nervous about how to pay rent” posts, and I’m sitting here with what is currently a $1.5k per week income off of Steem - the thing is just mind-blowing on so many levels.

Gratitude Level: I can’t believe this is happening, I am so lucky, my quality of life just went way up.

Confusion Level: How can I possibly be earning $1,500 in a week from Steem? This doesn’t make sense and will probably go away soon.

Preservation Level: I know that these prices could go away at any moment - how do I prepare for the worst-case scenario?

Joy Level: Without being a financial idiot, how can I take advantage of some of this money to have fun and improve my life?

I’ve thought a lot about this and above all else, I want to pay off my debts and reach net worth zero. That’s really the biggest financial goal.

Goals for Q1 2018

That means my goal in “Quarter 1”, i.e. the first three months, of 2018, is this:

• Put at Least 25% of My Net Earnings Towards Paying off Debt

…I think that’s it.

If I factor away 25% for debts, and another 20-25% of my net earnings for taxes, that means that I’ll have about 50% of my income for my day-to-day spending (both in terms of bills and in terms of fun stuff). Putting 25% into debts isn’t the most hardcore frugality ever, but it’s a simple and effective way to improve my financial situation.

In the absolutely wild scenario that I were to keep earning ~$1,500 per week from Steem for many more months to come, that means I could easily hit net worth $0 by the end of 2018.

Even if it goes way down and I only average $600 per week from ALL income - a vastly lower income that is more in line with what I earned prior to the December 2017 cryptocurrency bull market - I’d still be paying $150 per week into debts and could pay off my biggest credit card debt in the first half of the year.

It feels too simple to be true, but this is the crux of my financial situation for the next three months. I guess one other “sub goal” would be:

• Don’t lose access to any of my current income streams.

I should keep at least a nominal amount of work with Constant Content, Bitcoin Canada, and Textbroker just so my foot is in the door in case Steem crashes. If I do that AND crush it on steem, and put away 25% into debts, I’ll be winning.

Sounds good to me. The goal is set.

Personal Finance Update

BTW - here’s my final update for the year:

ASSETS:

Checking Account #1 (Bills/Rent): $977
Checking Account #2 (Day-to-day spending): $297
Checking Account #3 (BTC Debit Card Wallet): $9

Steem Liquid Wallet: 15 steem / $50

Savings Account #1: $180

Steem Power: 1,663 SP // $5,155

Total Assets: $6,668

DEBTS:

Money Owed to my Dad: ~$10,208

PayPal Credit: $5,797
Chase Credit: $440

Short Term Steem Loan: $300

Total Debts: $16,745

NET WORTH AS OF TODAY: -$10,077

LAST WEEK: -$10,491
NET CHANGE: +$414

Inching towards a negative four digit net worth… I’m a lot closer than I expected to be at the end of 2017, based on where I was a few months ago. This is a great way to close out 2017.

Have a Great End of 2017!

I hope your New Year’s party is fantastic and that you have a blast.

If you aren’t the type to celebrate, then I hope you get some sleep and enjoy the fact that all thus hubbub is about to be over for the year lol :-)

Either way, thank you for the support in 2017 and I’m looking forward to a great 2018!!!